Enter an apocalyptic fantasy world where humanity is on the brink of extinction, iron is valued above gold and trust is hard earned. This ARPG features complex character development, hundreds of unique items, crafting and quests with choice & consequence.

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Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you
should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“We started as a two-man team and eventually grew to six, then eight after a successful Kickstarter and alpha release. Our early vision was to create a fairly small, somewhat rough game as a way to get our studio off the ground with very limited resources. Kickstarter and Early Access have allowed us to expand greatly on that original vision and to create a larger game with more unique features. We continue to use Early Access as a laboratory in which to test and grow Grim Dawn, with continual player feedback and the flexibility to add new features and spend time refining the game in a way that typical publisher funded development doesn't allow.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We hope to have all core content completed by mid 2015. Beyond that, we will take as long as necessary to fix, polish, optimize and make adjustments based on community feedback until the game feels ready to call complete. We're estimating final release before the end of 2015 but ultimately, we'll work as long as it takes to get it right.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“Grim Dawn is already about 80% complete.

The only major feature not yet in, is another layer of skill development we're calling "Devotions," which will be revealed in more detail later on. Beyond that, you can expect more items, more enemies, more environments and more quests.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The core gameplay is well established and fun, there are 5 fully complete classes (which you can dual class to create tons of hybrid builds), hoards of loot to collect and an expansive world to explore with many secrets.

Most players are reporting between 10 to 20 hours or more for a first-time play-through. The finished game will probably end up around 15-30 hours for a first-time play-through depending on how much of the content you clear. Since we try to avoid "gating" the player and allow players to access Act 2 even before they've completed Act 1, it is possible to run though the game quickly, skipping a lot of content but there are also huge side-areas and secret areas, so clearing everything will take much longer.

Most players are reporting little to no crashing with only minor bugs. Multiplayer is available and most players are reporting a smooth experience. We continue to work on optimizing performance and expect to release the first significant optimizations in the first quarter of 2015. More performance optimization will occur toward the end of development as programmers finish feature work and are able to focus more on it.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“We haven't made a final decision but currently it is expected that the launch price will be the same as Early Access.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“We regularly read and respond to our forums both on Steam and the Grim Dawn website. A trip to the Grim Dawn website will show our history of interaction with our community since development first began. We've gathered feedback, posed questions to the community, taken polls to better understand the community's feelings about certain issues and tried to always explain our reasoning behind important decisions.”

February 25

A few weeks ahead of schedule, we are proud to announce that Build 24 has just gone live. You may now enter the town of Homestead and explore the western reaches of the ravaged farmlands beyond!

This build also includes some optimization improvements, the first phase of the Faction System Overhaul, an updated character selection screen and more!

With Build 24 out, you can look forward to the full Faction System in Build 25, probably by the end of April, and Act 3: Chapter 3 potentially in B26 around late May or June. Act 4 will begin to roll out in the third quarter 2015.

Reviews

“Grim Dawn’s the action RPG I’ve enjoyed most in quite some time, and I’m very keen to try the later chapters as they’re released. More so than Torchlight 2, which was a bit too much of a sugar rush experience for me, and certainly more so than Diablo III”
Rock Paper Shotgun

“Grim Dawn has earned my trust in a viable future; its foundation--the refined action and rock-solid character progression--is so sturdy that from moment to moment, there’s little to remind you that you’re playing an unfinished game.”
GameSpot

“If acquiring loot, battling monsters and progressing a character to amazing heights is your thing, then, again, Grim Dawn is a great game to look into.”
MMORPG

About This Game

Enter an apocalyptic fantasy world where humanity is on the brink of extinction, iron is valued above gold and trust is hard earned. This ARPG features complex character development, hundreds of unique items, crafting and quests with choice & consequence.

Crate Entertainment is a small indie studio founded by the lead gameplay designer of Titan Quest. Join the Grim Dawn community and provide feedback on the ongoing development of the game. Be among the first to experience our growing world, new features and make your mark by participating in polls and discussions on our forum.

Key Features

Dual class - combine any of five distinct skill classes each with multiple skill trees in which to specialize. Advance your class mastery to unlock over 25 powerful skills and synergistic modifiers per class. Soldier, Demolitionist, Occultist and Nightblade are currently playable with the Arcanist on the way.

Augment your class build with a diverse array of unique skills granted by items and components.

Quests with Choice and consequence mean you will face tough decisions that leave significant impacts upon the world. Strangers on the road, desperate families and even entire villages may live or perish based on your actions.

Recruit survivors who will lend their services to augment your power. Upgrade the town to improve the lives of human survivors.

Gain favor with different NPC factions to unlock additional quest lines and earn perks like merchant discounts. However, aiding one faction could turn a rival faction into your enemy.

Connect with old friends or make new allies in glorious multiplayer. Multiplayer encounters will put your teamwork to the ultimate challenge.

Fast-paced tactical combat with enemy blood spatters, ragdoll physics and satisfying enemy death effects. Smash in doors and fight house to house, leaving a path of demolished furniture in your wake.

Rotate the camera if you choose to survey the full beauty of the world and always fight from the most optimal angle. Levels are still designed so that players are not forced to rotate the camera; it is purely optional.

Test your hero against over 100 named hero monsters, hand-configured with their own unique arrays of deadly skills.

Explode obstacles or repair structures to open new paths.

Descend into special "challenge dungeons" where enemies levels increase as you progress.

Dynamic Weather brings the world to life with region-specific climates and a variety of weather effects. A sunny day can cloud over with mild rain showers that builds into a booming thunderstorm. Variable wind gusts blow grass and affect objects like windmills.

Collect item recipes that allow you to combine salvaged components into unique crafted items and then, later, use those basic crafted items with higher-tiered recipes to complete items of amazing power.

The ability to spend money to reclaim skill points alleviates the fear and frustration of having to make early, uninformed decisions that could permanently gimp a character.

Development Roadmap

You can currently play through Acts 1, 2 and the first chapter of, up to character level 40. There are multiple large, higher-level secret areas to be found beyond the main story content. While content is still in development, the core gameplay is already fairly robust and a lot of fun. There is quite a lot of replay value between trying different classes / builds and collecting items. We're still refining gameplay based on player feedback, adding requested features and working to deliver the remaining content and additional slated features. Most players report that the current build is fairly stable with mostly mild bugs and we're always working to fix bugs as they come up. Here is some of the stuff we plan to roll out in the coming months:

Currently in development:

Continued optimization and bug fixing

More questing and NPC interaction involving factions

Act 3 - Chapter 2 to be released in Q1 2015

Additional big features to be announced

We expect the final game will provide about 30-40 hours for a first-time play-through on normal difficulty, depending on level of exploration / clearing. This is our first game as a studio and we intend for Grim Dawn to be a continuing franchise, not just a one-off game. So it is important that we put in the time and effort to create something we're proud of, that will help us to earn a loyal fanbase for the future. We hope you'll come be part of this experience and help us to forge a strong new addition to the ARPG genre.

System Requirements

Minimum:

OS: Windows XP / Windows Vista / Windows 7 / Windows 8

Processor: x86 compatible 2.0GHz or faster processor

Memory: 2 GB RAM

Graphics: 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series or ATI Radeon X800 series or better

DirectX: Version 9.0c

Hard Drive: 5 GB available space

Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card

Additional Notes: 4GB of memory is required to host multiplayer games

Recommended:

OS: Windows 7

Processor: x86 compatible 3.0GHz or faster processor

Memory: 4 GB RAM

Graphics: 1.5GB NVIDIA GeForce 500 series or ATI Radeon 6000 series or better

DirectX: Version 11

Hard Drive: 5 GB available space

Additional Notes: 4GB of memory is recommended to host multiplayer games

Grim Dawn is the intellectual property of Crate Entertainment LLC, all rights reserved.

First off the Story:Grim Dawn is full of interesting dialogue and well written textbooks that truly immerse you into the game. Furthermore there is a multitude of sidequest that often allow you to make meaningful decisions and sometimes even determine the fate of a whole village.

Unfortunately these stories are hard to follow for someone who doesn't read through all the text. As much as I know the devs plan to voice the main story towards release.

Atmosphere:The graphics present you with a harsh and sinister environment which is further emphasized by the great music and sounds. The handcrafted maps are quite large and feature hidden passages from time to time. It also feels great when you encounter hostile factions attacking each other and follow the transformation of Devil's Crossing from a small survivors-enclave to a small town as you progress through the story.

Only downpoint for me was the repetitiveness of some maps, especially the 3 swamps in act 1 and arkovia/broken hills in act 2. I was told that the devs are planning to rework some of these areas though in terms of visuals.

Gameplay:Gritty, fun combat, just as you would expect from an ARPG. The constitution system makes sure that you don't just wait to regenerate and the scarcity of potions underlines the fact that you are survivor of a perished world. Unlike Diablo 3 leveling feels rewarding and presents you with relevant decisions that influence your progression later in the game. The dual-mastery system of Titan Quest opens up a ton of possibilities and will further improve the more classes are available. The locational damage will probably not suprise TQ-veterans, but for ARPGs in general it's a really noteworthy feature that adds further depth to the game. (On a site note: There is an existing faction system that will be dramatically improved in the upcoming build)

Since build 20 there is a well-working multiplayer, unfortunately the damage monster deal is also scaled if you play together. Resistances don't show much effect if they are not pushed quite high and casts and even aoe skills can miss enemies. Coming from WoW I was never very fond of a "accuracy" stat as it pretty much forces players to cap it.

Itemization:The game features a multitude of stats to choose from: many types of retaliation, skill bonuses, damage modifiers, resists, etc. etc. This and the fact that there are procs and even entire new skills on items massively increases the number of possible builds and the fun collecting every item. Unlike other games in the genre there are not only random rolled yellows and greens but also static epic items which helps to reduce "bad luck", legendary items will drop from 50 onward, but are not available yet. Like Titan Quest there is also a huge number of augmentations to further personalize your gear. The two unqiue blacksmiths to choose from make use of these augmentations to craft a bunch of new items and relics from blueprints found in the world. All items are fully tradeable with other players.

It seems there are some apparently obsolete stats though: Armor and physical resist pretty much do the same and "increase resistance x by x%" isn't really needed either.

Interface:The game has a multitude of options and a fully scalalbe interface, which makes it highly customizable. The data sheets are well categorized and easy to access.

Sometimes the text on items can get a little bit long though.Same goes for several skill descriptions, some of which only offer vague information, e.g. Solaels Witchfire - what exactly do the 1st and 2nd rune increase? You will have to try that out for yourself.

Content:Grim Dawn is not finished yet, but it already has act 1-3 which offer fairly much to do and even on the second playthough reveal some suprises. Hallowed Hill, Depraved Sanctuary and Steps of Torment provide some lasting "endgame" content, the latter even comes with a cohesive and interesting story. Due to the fact that the current maximum level is 40 the number of build possibilites is limited of course, nontheless there is plenty of them already. I'd say there's roughly 150-200h of playtime right now if you don't try the more fancy builds.

Bugs:I haven't encountered many bugs which is refreshing for an early access title these days, here are the most prevalent ones:- Getting stuck especially when using teleports/charge- Hit detection sometimes doesn't work for aoe skills like "shockwave"- Some attacks can clip though walls, both hostile and friendly- Items occasionally drop through the floor, especially annoying with epics* The devs seem to be aware of these bugs and will address some of them in B24

To sum it up:- in no way generic or boring quests that offer real decisions; story may be hard to follow if you don't read through every text though- dense atmosphere, brilliantly handcrafted world that sometimes feels repetitive because of the lack of different textures- good mix of fun gameplay, diverse builds and multi-layered mechanics with only minor problems here and there- interesting and complex itemization with a few debatable stats- well done interface, many options, but sometimes useless skill/item descriptions- reasonable quantity of well thought out content, likely 150-200h- few bugs, very polished for an alpha

I have never had so much fun coming up with new builds and testing them right away. The gameplay is mostly fluid, the graphics and audio help create a unique atmosphere that supports the many stories you find about the world of Cairn and it's residents. It may take some time though to see through the complexity of the skill tree and items and appreciate the thought that has gone into it. All in all I'd say that Grim Dawn even in it's currents state is worth every penny as it not only offers the usal ARPG features, but also comes with it's own fresh ideas and shows promise of even more.

P.S. I have noticed that many reviews on youtube are from people/magazines who invested less than 20h and therefore don't go really deep into the many mechanics Grim Dawn has to offer. This doesn't do the game justice in my opinion. Please don't take those reviews seriously and give the game a chance if above points take your fancy.

First and foremost, I was highly skeptical about this game before I bought it. I saw it and thought "Re-skin of Titan Quest." I am happy to see the spirit of TQ perserved while establishing itself as it's own Intellectual Property and its take on Action Role Playing Games.

I was let down by the charactor creation (I spend a lot of time on charactor creation in games like Saints Row 3, 4 and Skyrim etc) and thusly wasn't able to creat a persona that felt like mine. However I've come to expect this from ARPGs so I wasn't to let down.

After playing Diablo 3 from launch and being terribly dissapointed by it's lacklustre story I was impressed by how fast I took to the setting and story being told here. In a nutshell you are a "Taken" and about to be hung. Once the game began I noticed zombies assaulting the town and was actually excited to get into the swing of things. 5 hours later, my wife is giving me the stare and the fog clears. This is the first ARPG to legit suck me into the zone. Story wise there are genuine choices to be had and content "can be skipped" (Zones have a minimum monster level however).

Gameplay wise I've only played as a Demolistionist/Occultist but the skills are rewarding and the weapons have an oomph. One gripe i have is being unable to undo mastery points (Something I learned a little late) full on respecs should be a thing.

Graphically the game looks well, the setting and the monsters fit in and match the games tone.

The game even in early access almost feels like a complete game (besides of course some lacking content and story) it just feels very solid and stable. The gameplay is very fun and addicting which of course is what matters the most. The game keeps on getting better and better with every new update that comes along every other month.

I understand there will not be character wipes when the game is released so there's nothing really to lose by playing now. I would recommend buying it and start playing right away (this also helps the developers getting some cashflow - as it's a VERY small team).

I have been following this game for years, and have been playing since the first available released Alpha. It has come a long way, trekked through many zombie infested bugs. It has true potential to be a successor to the Titan Quest series. The Dev's are friendly and listen to most of the community and the community has been mostly awesome back. Dev's take bug reporting seriously and will remedy a BIG patch with each build update, unless there is a serious bug that breaks gameplay they will push one out fast asap. The game just keeps getting better and better as time goes. I dont play it all the time, i do go on a week like binge and take a break here and there.

Yes everyone knows its a Diablo esque hack & slash loot game. I see no problem in that. Just lots of SHINIES! :D

Gameplay - Its improved and fantastic!Story - Is very interesting (probably matter of opinion because some spots can seem bland) with a good amount of lore in between. Soundtrack - its perfect, goes with the atmosphere of the game.Loot - is ever improving and some amazing stuff drops yet the loot table is not even 10% available at the current build!Classes - Whether main specing or dual specing its impressive to see what kinds of character builds we can come up with and what skill combos we can do to make our characters pretty unique.Multiplayer - OMG we have multiplayer! Its a little buggy at times but we have multiplayer! And its fun!

Haven't got very far in the game, but the 7+ hours i've played so far have been really fun, if your a fan of ARPGs like PoE/Diablo etc you should definately give this game a try. Classes are unique with themselves and the ability to play with friends/loved ones make the experience much more enjoyable.

Five hours into Grim Dawn and my Witchblade is happily swinging around a pipe with gears attached to the end of it with both hands after applying some parts that make it do poison damage. With his little buddy Raven flying behind him, shooting electricity out of his eye balls, my Wicthblade is demolishing every foe he encounters, waves at a time. And just when I think this may be too easy, I hit a boss level monster that makes me start quaffing the few potions I have. I finally crush the boss monster's head like a grape with my two-handed "mace" and get the loot. All is right with the world.

I have a few Early Access titles in my game list, but Grim Dawn is by far the most polished one I have played. Heck, I've played big production titles that don't work this well (I'm looking at you, "Rise of the Argonauts").

Add this to the fact that I played Diablo and liked it. Played D2 and liked it. Played Titan Quest and loved it, and add that I tend to enjoy apocalyptic game settings and that makes Grim Dawn something that will not be uninstalled for a very long time.

For an ARPG, the writting is superb. The letters and dialoge are on par with what you would expect from a classic western RPG.

I cannot reccomend this title enough, and although I am nowhere near being done playing this game I have to wonder with a benchmark being set this high: what will Crate do next?

I was pleasantly surprised by this game. Bought it expecting a bit of casual fun, played for a couple of hours and wow, I'm hooked! This is the first game since Diablo 2 that has given me the same feeling Diablo 2 did. It's difficult enough to be challenging without being tedious or overly complex. Crate did an absolutely fantastic job on this.

I would highly recommend this game to anyone. It is one of the best hack and slash games I have played in a very long time. And it's good to see a game in early access that is so complete for what has been released. Even though the acts are still being worked on, the content out is great and I haven't seen too many bugs, and none that are game breaking thus far. If you are looking for a good hack and slash game I would recommend you to buy this, you won't regret spending the money.

Excellent game so far by a company that seems to love their product. Check the Forums before you buy. The Devs are constantly working with the community to make this game even better. Their customers love the game.

A great game just like Titan's Quest and Diablo. I am stuck at Homestead due to waiting on the next chapter but I am having so much fun so far. Just ran around once I got as far as I could, killing stuff, making money and gathering loot. I have bought all the extra space in the loot chest but I can see myself needing more in the future! Lots of great loot to hoard.

I recommend this game highly if you love the above mentioned games. I experienced no bugs or crashes given this game is still in early access mode. Excited for the next chapter!

As of today Build 24 is out! I finally get to go in that town at the end of my last journey. Great game, will be hooked for a while. Titanquest engine runs, and feels new with the sound design, and gritty artwork in the game.

This game is an absolute win all around. I found out about it through an ad on Facebook. From what the ad said I thought "Hmm.. this game sounds too good to be true." I bought it and am still amazed at what a great find it is. In my opinion this game outclasses Diablo, and every other ARPG out there. The build potential is basically limitless, and I really love the aspect of action/consequence (I'm a huge Fable fan). I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys any kind of rpg.

faithful to there community they give regular updates and even released a new class, among other things the game is soild and well worith the money they ask for. Also with more updates to come it can only get better, and rememeber this is only alpha or so this game is far from done but it already gives what most games dont.